| dc.description.abstract | This monograph tests R. Agnew’s (1992) general strain theory (GST) of
youth crime and delinquency, takes into consideration the results of social
structure transformation in Poland and its sense of alienation.
Generally speaking, the consequences of socio-political changes that occurred
after 1989 in Poland, in addition to an increase in unemployment and
poverty, is also a crisis of authority, growing consumerism, corruption and deregulation
of criminal policy. The response to that state of affairs is to increase
the number of crimes committed among young people (13-17 and 17-21 years).
In the case of juvenile delinquency and young adult crime in Poland noteworthy
changes both quantitative and qualitative. In professional literature we could
detail the main points:
- an increase of the number of crimes against life and health (brutalization of
crime),
- a significant reduction of the lower age limit of offenders,
- the systematic increase of delinquency of girls/women,
- an increase of the criminological recidivism,
- the transcending of crime beyond the pathological environment (the circle of
social margin) - the perpetrators come from families of middle or high social
status,
- an increase of the number of crimes like playful (play type) - behavior based
on aggression, violence, acts of vandalism,
- an increase of the number of crimes committed without clear, base motives
(for example, crimes where the definition of situational and motivational
background of the perpetrators is very difficult),
- an increase of the number of delinquency in which we can notice a lack of
connection between victim and perpetrator (crimes where victims are strangers,
unknown perpetrators),
- an increase of a participation in organized crime and international crime.
The main problem of the research contains in the following question:
Is there a relation between the sense of strain (of different types) and the
social control, differential association, personality factors, situational-social
factors, and youth delinquency?
The following groups were compared:
- delinquents and non-delinquents (pupils),
- aggressive act offenders and non-aggressive act offenders,
- offenders which were punished only one time and punished many times.
An additional objective of the study were relations between:
- the sense of alienation (of various dimensions) and delinquency (the same
groups were compared),
- the general sense of strain, the social control, differential association, situational,
social factors, personality factors, and severity of criminal behavior,
- the sense of strain (general strain and different types) and the dimensions of
alienation,
- the sense of strain (general strain and different types) and the social control,
differential association, situational, social factors, personality factors,
- the social control, differential association, situational, social factors, personality
factors and the sense of alienation,
The hypotheses were tested on 179 male young adult prisoners and 145 pupils.
At the outset we seek to determine whether the results obtained in the Polish
conditions correspond to those obtained in studies of American youth. They applied
the same statistical procedures (factor analysis, multiple regression analysis),
that R. Agnew and H.R. White did. We drew conclusions that the factor
analysis and multiple regression analysis obtained concurrent results.
The main hypothesis concerns on the existence of significant differences in
the sense of strain, social control, differential association, situational, social
factors and personality factors among youth delinquents and non-delinquents.
It turns out that the young offenders to a greater extent than non-offenders
(pupils) experiences a sense of strain (its different types), lack of adequate social
control, is characterized by low levels of aspirations to further education,
it is characterized by lower self-esteem and more external attribution of the
causes of failures/strain. These young delinquents are also more linked to people
/peers, who are involved in crime and use drugs. This hypothesis has not
received unequivocal support for the situational and social factors. Differences
between groups (where higher results were obtained by young offenders), relate
to one dimension, that describes the lack of life prospects and a negative assessment
of the social reality of the country, but long-term financial problems in the
family were on the borderline of significance.
In conclusion it can be assumed that in the group of youthful offenders reviewed
on the Polish soil model by R. Agnew and H.R. White (with modifications
made by the author) describes the relations between factors, which may
be predictors of youth crime and delinquency, and may be important in making
their criminal behavior.
The results could be used in the prevention of criminal behavior, therapy,
rehabilitation, criminal and social policy.
Finally we could remark, that general strain theory has the potential to serve
a major explanation of young adult crime and juvenile delinquency in contemporary
society. | en_EN |
